All about: the My Food Bag My Summer BBQ Bag

Last year I seriously fell in love with the My Food Bag service, which was a concept new to New Zealand at the time and a total winner.

It was the work of MasterChef 2011 winner Nadia Lim, who joined forces with 2012 Businesswoman of the Year Cecilia Robinson and New Zealand business powerhouse Theresa Gattung to create a gourmet home delivery service with the plan to “revolutionise the way we cook and eat at home”. It’s is a weekly service delivering meal kits comprising quality, free range ingredients, together with nutritious seasonal recipes designed by Nadia with healthy eating and good taste in mind. It offers a Classic bag for families or households of four to five people for five meals that are kiwi favourites with a twist, whilst the Gourmet bag is for couples and contains ingredients for four meals using gourmet produce and products.

I totally fell in love with the food and the whole concept. We cook healthy, fresh food as household anyway, but often get stuck in a bit of rut and rotate the same collection of favourites on a weekly basis. We also waste a hell of a lot of food when bags of greens and whatnot aren’t consumed as quickly as a bigger family, which hits my conscience as readily as it hits my pocket! My Food Bag addressed both of those scenarios from the get go, with bags of each and every ingredient we’d be needing (bar some kitchen staples) arriving fresh on a Sunday night in perfect quantities.

And the recipes - oh the recipes! They were insanely easily followed and healthy to boot, with a real emphasis on fresh flavours and a great balance of protein to carbs and the like.

But anyway, I was intrigued when I heard that My Food Bag was now offering a very handy add-on in the form of the My Summer BBQ Bag ($89.99 and worth every cent).

Each My Summer BBQ Bag has quality BBQ meat options and two vege dishes which could include everything from gourmet salads to modernised old favourites with that special Nadia Lim flair.  It feeds up to five people for two nights – or you could invite some friends around for dinner and be pretty much sorted.

I tried a bag and there was certainly plenty to go around! Options included a perfect beef sirloin with chunky herb vinaigrette (10 minutes’ tops to create), Middle Eastern-style chicken kebabs, premium pork sausages and amazing salad options that included Grilled Baby Carrot with Honey and Mint salad - a new favourite that I am definitely repeating! Everything arrived with full instructions and cooking times, and despite the fact that one ingredient was missed out (Chermoula, which arrived the next day and immediately put to good use!) we had more than enough delicious dishes to chow down on.

If you want to order one for your next barbie - and I highly recommend that you do - head to www.myfoodbag.co.nz.